<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></SPAN>CHAPTER XV</h2>
<h3>THE HOME COMING</h3>
<p><span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></SPAN></span>Mrs. Pennel, too, had seen the white, dove-like cloud
on the horizon, and had hurried to make biscuits, and conduct
other culinary preparations which should welcome the
wanderers home.</p>
<p>The sun was just dipping into the great blue sea—a
round ball of fire—and sending long, slanting tracks of
light across the top of each wave, when a boat was moored
at the beach, and the minister sprang out,—not in his
suit of ceremony, but attired in fisherman's garb.</p>
<p>"Good afternoon, Mrs. Pennel," he said. "I was out
fishing, and I thought I saw your husband's schooner in
the distance. I thought I'd come and tell you."</p>
<p>"Thank you, Mr. Sewell. I thought I saw it, but I
was not certain. Do come in; the Captain would be delighted
to see you here."</p>
<p>"We miss your husband in our meetings," said Mr.
Sewell; "it will be good news for us all when he comes
home; he is one of those I depend on to help me preach."</p>
<p>"I'm sure you don't preach to anybody who enjoys it
more," said Mrs. Pennel. "He often tells me that the
greatest trouble about his voyages to the Banks is that he
loses so many sanctuary privileges; though he always keeps
Sunday on his ship, and reads and sings his psalms; but,
he says, after all, there's nothing like going to Mount
Zion."</p>
<p>"And little Moses has gone on his first voyage?" said
the minister.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Yes, indeed; the child has been teasing to go for more
than a year. Finally the Cap'n told him if he'd be faithful
in the ploughing and planting, he should go. You see,
he's rather unsteady, and apt to be off after other things,—very
different from Mara. Whatever you give her to
do, she always keeps at it till it's done."</p>
<p>"And pray, where is the little lady?" said the minister;
"is she gone?"</p>
<p>"Well, Cap'n Kittridge came in this afternoon to take
her down to see Sally. The Cap'n's always so fond of
Mara, and she has always taken to him ever since she was
a baby."</p>
<p>"The Captain is a curious creature," said the minister,
smiling.</p>
<p>Mrs. Pennel smiled also; and it is to be remarked that
nobody ever mentioned the poor Captain's name without
the same curious smile.</p>
<p>"The Cap'n is a good-hearted, obliging creature," said
Mrs. Pennel, "and a master-hand for telling stories to the
children."</p>
<p>"Yes, a perfect 'Arabian Nights' Entertainment,'" said
Mr. Sewell.</p>
<p>"Well, I really believe the Cap'n believes his own
stories," said Mrs. Pennel; "he always seems to, and certainly
a more obliging man and a kinder neighbor couldn't
be. He has been in and out almost every day since I've
been alone, to see if I wanted anything. He would insist
on chopping wood and splitting kindlings for me, though
I told him the Cap'n and Moses had left a plenty to last
till they came home."</p>
<p>At this moment the subject of their conversation appeared
striding along the beach, with a large, red lobster in
one hand, while with the other he held little Mara upon
his shoulder, she the while clapping her hands and singing
merrily, as she saw the Brilliant out on the open blue sea,<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></SPAN></span>
its white sails looking of a rosy purple in the evening light,
careering gayly homeward.</p>
<p>"There is Captain Kittridge this very minute," said
Mrs. Pennel, setting down a tea-cup she had been wiping,
and going to the door.</p>
<p>"Good evening, Mis' Pennel," said the Captain. "I
s'pose you see your folks are comin'. I brought down one
of these 'ere ready b'iled, 'cause I thought it might make
out your supper."</p>
<p>"Thank you, Captain; you must stay and take some
with us."</p>
<p>"Wal', me and the children have pooty much done our
supper," said the Captain. "We made a real fust-rate
chowder down there to the cove; but I'll jist stay and see
what the Cap'n's luck is. Massy!" he added, as he
looked in at the door, "if you hain't got the minister
there! Wal', now, I come jist as I be," he added, with
a glance down at his clothes.</p>
<p>"Never mind, Captain," said Mr. Sewell; "I'm in my
fishing-clothes, so we're even."</p>
<p>As to little Mara, she had run down to the beach, and
stood so near the sea, that every dash of the tide-wave
forced her little feet to tread an inch backward, stretching
out her hands eagerly toward the schooner, which was
standing straight toward the small wharf, not far from their
door. Already she could see on deck figures moving about,
and her sharp little eyes made out a small personage in a
red shirt that was among the most active. Soon all the
figures grew distinct, and she could see her grandfather's
gray head, and alert, active form, and could see, by the
signs he made, that he had perceived the little blowy figure
that stood, with hair streaming in the wind, like some
flower bent seaward.</p>
<p>And now they are come nearer, and Moses shouts and
dances on the deck, and the Captain and Mrs. Pennel come<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></SPAN></span>
running from the house down to the shore, and a few
minutes more, and all are landed safe and sound, and little
Mara is carried up to the house in her grandfather's arms,
while Captain Kittridge stops to have a few moments' gossip
with Ben Halliday and Tom Scranton before they go
to their own resting-places.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Moses loses not a moment in boasting of his
heroic exploits to Mara.</p>
<p>"Oh, Mara! you've no idea what times we've had! I
can fish equal to any of 'em, and I can take in sail and
tend the helm like anything, and I know all the names of
everything; and you ought to have seen us catch fish!
Why, they bit just as fast as we could throw; and it was
just throw and bite,—throw and bite,—throw and bite;
and my hands got blistered pulling in, but I didn't mind
it,—I was determined no one should beat me."</p>
<p>"Oh! did you blister your hands?" said Mara, pitifully.</p>
<p>"Oh, to be sure! Now, you girls think that's a dreadful
thing, but we men don't mind it. My hands are getting
so hard, you've no idea. And, Mara, we caught a
great shark."</p>
<p>"A shark!—oh, how dreadful! Isn't he dangerous?"</p>
<p>"Dangerous! I guess not. We served him out, I tell
you. He'll never eat any more people, I tell you, the old
wretch!"</p>
<p>"But, poor shark, it isn't his fault that he eats people.
He was made so," said Mara, unconsciously touching a
deep theological mystery.</p>
<p>"Well, I don't know but he was," said Moses; "but
sharks that we catch never eat any more, I'll bet you."</p>
<p>"Oh, Moses, did you see any icebergs?"</p>
<p>"Icebergs! yes; we passed right by one,—a real grand
one."</p>
<p>"Were there any bears on it?"<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Bears! No; we didn't see any."</p>
<p>"Captain Kittridge says there are white bears live on
'em."</p>
<p>"Oh, Captain Kittridge," said Moses, with a toss of
superb contempt; "if you're going to believe all <i>he</i> says,
you've got your hands full."</p>
<p>"Why, Moses, you don't think he tells lies?" said
Mara, the tears actually starting in her eyes. "I think he
is <i>real</i> good, and tells nothing but the truth."</p>
<p>"Well, well, you are young yet," said Moses, turning
away with an air of easy grandeur, "and only a girl besides,"
he added.</p>
<p>Mara was nettled at this speech. First, it pained her to
have her child's faith shaken in anything, and particularly
in her good old friend, the Captain; and next, she felt,
with more force than ever she did before, the continual
disparaging tone in which Moses spoke of her girlhood.</p>
<p>"I'm sure," she said to herself, "he oughtn't to feel
so about girls and women. There was Deborah was a prophetess,
and judged Israel; and there was Egeria,—she
taught Numa Pompilius all his wisdom."</p>
<p>But it was not the little maiden's way to speak when
anything thwarted or hurt her, but rather to fold all her
feelings and thoughts inward, as some insects, with fine
gauzy wings, draw them under a coat of horny concealment.
Somehow, there was a shivering sense of disappointment in
all this meeting with Moses. She had dwelt upon it, and
fancied so much, and had so many things to say to him;
and he had come home so self-absorbed and glorious, and
seemed to have had so little need of or thought for her,
that she felt a cold, sad sinking at her heart; and walking
away very still and white, sat down demurely by her grandfather's
knee.</p>
<p>"Well, so my little girl is glad grandfather's come," he
said, lifting her fondly in his arms, and putting her golden<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></SPAN></span>
head under his coat, as he had been wont to do from
infancy; "grandpa thought a great deal about his little
Mara."</p>
<p>The small heart swelled against his. Kind, faithful old
grandpa! how much more he thought about her than
Moses; and yet she had thought so much of Moses. And
there he sat, this same ungrateful Moses, bright-eyed and
rosy-cheeked, full of talk and gayety, full of energy and
vigor, as ignorant as possible of the wound he had given to
the little loving heart that was silently brooding under her
grandfather's butternut-colored sea-coat. Not only was he
ignorant, but he had not even those conditions within himself
which made knowledge possible. All that there was
developed of him, at present, was a fund of energy, self-esteem,
hope, courage, and daring, the love of action, life,
and adventure; his life was in the outward and present,
not in the inward and reflective; he was a true ten-year
old boy, in its healthiest and most animal perfection.
What she was, the small pearl with the golden hair, with
her frail and high-strung organization, her sensitive nerves,
her half-spiritual fibres, her ponderings, and marvels, and
dreams, her power of love, and yearning for self-devotion,
our readers may, perhaps, have seen. But if ever two
children, or two grown people, thus organized, are thrown
into intimate relations, it follows, from the very laws of
their being, that one must hurt the other, simply by being
itself; one must always hunger for what the other has not
to give.</p>
<p>It was a merry meal, however, when they all sat down
to the tea-table once more, and Mara by her grandfather's
side, who often stopped what he was saying to stroke her
head fondly. Moses bore a more prominent part in the
conversation than he had been wont to do before this voyage,
and all seemed to listen to him with a kind of indulgence
elders often accord to a handsome, manly boy, in the<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></SPAN></span>
first flush of some successful enterprise. That ignorant
confidence in one's self and one's future, which comes in
life's first dawn, has a sort of mournful charm in experienced
eyes, who know how much it all amounts to.</p>
<p>Gradually, little Mara quieted herself with listening to
and admiring him. It is not comfortable to have any
heart-quarrel with one's cherished idol, and everything of
the feminine nature, therefore, can speedily find fifty good
reasons for seeing one's self in the wrong and one's graven
image in the right; and little Mara soon had said to herself,
without words, that, of course, Moses couldn't be
expected to think as much of her as she of him. He was
handsomer, cleverer, and had a thousand other things to
do and to think of—he was a boy, in short, and going to
be a glorious man and sail all over the world, while she
could only hem handkerchiefs and knit stockings, and sit
at home and wait for him to come back. This was about
the <i>résumé</i> of life as it appeared to the little one, who
went on from the moment worshiping her image with
more undivided idolatry than ever, hoping that by and by
he would think more of her.</p>
<p>Mr. Sewell appeared to study Moses carefully and
thoughtfully, and encouraged the wild, gleeful frankness
which he had brought home from his first voyage, as a
knowing jockey tries the paces of a high-mettled colt.</p>
<p>"Did you get any time to read?" he interposed once,
when the boy stopped in his account of their adventures.</p>
<p>"No, sir," said Moses; "at least," he added, blushing
very deeply, "I didn't feel like reading. I had so much
to do, and there was so much to see."</p>
<p>"It's all new to him now," said Captain Pennel; "but
when he comes to being, as I've been, day after day, with
nothing but sea and sky, he'll be glad of a book, just to
break the sameness."</p>
<p>"Laws, yes," said Captain Kittridge; "sailor's life ain't<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></SPAN></span>
all apple-pie, as it seems when a boy first goes on a summer
trip with his daddy—not by no manner o' means."</p>
<p>"But," said Mara, blushing and looking very eagerly at
Mr. Sewell, "Moses has read a great deal. He read the
Roman and the Grecian history through before he went
away, and knows all about them."</p>
<p>"Indeed!" said Mr. Sewell, turning with an amused
look towards the tiny little champion; "do you read them,
too, my little maid?"</p>
<p>"Yes, indeed," said Mara, her eyes kindling; "I have
read them a great deal since Moses went away—them and
the Bible."</p>
<p>Mara did not dare to name her new-found treasure—there
was something so mysterious about that, that she
could not venture to produce it, except on the score of extreme
intimacy.</p>
<p>"Come, sit by me, little Mara," said the minister, putting
out his hand; "you and I must be friends, I see."</p>
<p>Mr. Sewell had a certain something of mesmeric power
in his eyes which children seldom resisted; and with a
shrinking movement, as if both attracted and repelled, the
little girl got upon his knee.</p>
<p>"So you like the Bible and Roman history?" he said
to her, making a little aside for her, while a brisk conversation
was going on between Captain Kittridge and Captain
Pennel on the fishing bounty for the year.</p>
<p>"Yes, sir," said Mara, blushing in a very guilty way.</p>
<p>"And which do you like the best?"</p>
<p>"I don't know, sir; I sometimes think it is the one,
and sometimes the other."</p>
<p>"Well, what pleases you in the Roman history?"</p>
<p>"Oh, I like that about Quintus Curtius."</p>
<p>"Quintus Curtius?" said Mr. Sewell, pretending not to
remember.</p>
<p>"Oh, don't you remember him? why, there was a great<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></SPAN></span>
gulf opened in the Forum, and the Augurs said that the
country would not be saved unless some one would offer
himself up for it, and so he jumped right in, all on horseback.
I think that was grand. I should like to have
done that," said little Mara, her eyes blazing out with a
kind of starry light which they had when she was excited.</p>
<p>"And how would you have liked it, if you had been a
Roman girl, and Moses were Quintus Curtius? would you
like to have him give himself up for the good of the
country?"</p>
<p>"Oh, no, no!" said Mara, instinctively shuddering.</p>
<p>"Don't you think it would be very grand of him?"</p>
<p>"Oh, yes, sir."</p>
<p>"And shouldn't we wish our friends to do what is brave
and grand?"</p>
<p>"Yes, sir; but then," she added, "it would be so dreadful
<i>never</i> to see him any more," and a large tear rolled
from the great soft eyes and fell on the minister's hand.</p>
<p>"Come, come," thought Mr. Sewell, "this sort of experimenting
is too bad—too much nerve here, too much
solitude, too much pine-whispering and sea-dashing are
going to the making up of this little piece of workmanship."</p>
<p>"Tell me," he said, motioning Moses to sit by him,
"how <i>you</i> like the Roman history."</p>
<p>"I like it first-rate," said Moses. "The Romans were
such smashers, and beat everybody; nobody could stand
against them; and I like Alexander, too—I think he was
splendid."</p>
<p>"True boy," said Mr. Sewell to himself, "unreflecting
brother of the wind and the sea, and all that is vigorous
and active—no precocious development of the moral
here."</p>
<p>"Now you have come," said Mr. Sewell, "I will lend
you another book."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Thank you, sir; I love to read them when I'm at
home—it's so still here. I should be dull if I didn't."</p>
<p>Mara's eyes looked eagerly attentive. Mr. Sewell noticed
their hungry look when a book was spoken of.</p>
<p>"And you must read it, too, my little girl," he said.</p>
<p>"Thank you, sir," said Mara; "I always want to read
everything Moses does."</p>
<p>"What book is it?" said Moses.</p>
<p>"It is called Plutarch's 'Lives,'" said the minister; "it
has more particular accounts of the men you read about in
history."</p>
<p>"Are there any lives of women?" said Mara.</p>
<p>"No, my dear," said Mr. Sewell; "in the old times,
women did not get their lives written, though I don't
doubt many of them were much better worth writing than
the men's."</p>
<p>"I should like to be a great general," said Moses, with
a toss of his head.</p>
<p>"The way to be great lies through books, now, and not
through battles," said the minister; "there is more done
with pens than swords; so, if you want to do anything,
you must read and study."</p>
<p>"Do you think of giving this boy a liberal education?"
said Mr. Sewell some time later in the evening, after Moses
and Mara were gone to bed.</p>
<p>"Depends on the boy," said Zephaniah. "I've been
up to Brunswick, and seen the fellows there in the college.
With a good many of 'em, going to college seems to be
just nothing but a sort of ceremony; they go because they're
sent, and don't learn anything more'n they can help.
That's what I call waste of time and money."</p>
<p>"But don't you think Moses shows some taste for reading
and study?"</p>
<p>"Pretty well, pretty well!" said Zephaniah; "jist keep
him a little hungry; not let him get all he wants, you see,<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></SPAN></span>
and he'll bite the sharper. If I want to catch cod, I don't
begin with flingin' over a barrel o' bait. So with the
boys, jist bait 'em with a book here and a book there, and
kind o' let 'em feel their own way, and then, if nothin'
will do but a fellow must go to college, give in to him—that'd
be <i>my</i> way."</p>
<p>"And a very good one, too!" said Mr. Sewell. "I'll
see if I can't bait my hook, so as to make Moses take after
Latin this winter. I shall have plenty of time to teach
him."</p>
<p>"Now, there's Mara!" said the Captain, his face becoming
phosphorescent with a sort of mild radiance of pleasure
as it usually was when he spoke of her; "she's real
sharp set after books; she's ready to fly out of her little
skin at the sight of one."</p>
<p>"That child thinks too much, and feels too much, and
knows too much for her years!" said Mr. Sewell. "If
she were a boy, and you would take her away cod-fishing,
as you have Moses, the sea-winds would blow away some
of the thinking, and her little body would grow stout, and
her mind less delicate and sensitive. But she's a woman,"
he said, with a sigh, "and they are all alike. We can't
do much for them, but let them come up as they will and
make the best of it."</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />